Q&A With Juergen Henry

How did you begin your career at COPS?

I was referred to COPS by a good friend, at the time they were a dispatcher. I was a student and high school football coach at the time.

What did you like most about being a dispatcher? Operations Manager? VP of Operations?

As a dispatcher, I really liked helping to protect people and making their day better in what could be a stressful situation. I took pride in giving someone excellent service, and it always made my day better knowing when they acknowledged I helped them.

As Operations Manager of the Texas site, I liked the challenge of growing our team! It’s been a tremendous experience, watching our people grow personally and professionally is one of most gratifying experiences I’ve ever had.

In my new role as VP of Operations, I look forward to working closely with all of our site managers and their staff to help them realize their potential within our company.

What have you learned as you’ve grown with the company?

There’s nothing more valuable than the people that work with you. Also, you can’t lead without a clear and compelling vision.

Were you surprised to receive the promotion?

Yes! Both surprised and honored. When I started working here I never thought I would be in the position I’m in today.

How have you changed since you first started working at COPS?

I have matured, a lot. I was just 21 when I started working here. I didn’t know what it meant to work in a professional environment or fully comprehend what it took to live up to a higher standard in the workplace. Our company’s commitment to personal and professional growth is evident.

What advice would you give someone who is interested in making a career with us?

First, enjoy where you’re at now and the journey. The second I embraced the idea of enjoying what I did for a living was the moment I became great at my job. Second, there’s no timetable for success. I dispatched for almost 3 years before I received a promotion to management. Finally, you’re not going to be perfect. It’s okay not to be perfect or even get a review that wasn’t what you hoped for. It’s about how you respond to and learn from adversity, not the fact that you went through it.

What’s one mistake you’ve made, and what have you learned from it?

If you had to pick one character trait that helped make you successful, what would it be?

Instead of monitoring our accounts with an “off the shelf” monitoring platform, COPS is the only company in the industry with its own proprietary UL-listed monitoring platform. Generations was written by our in-house staff of programmers to provide reliable monitoring and to meet the specific needs of independent alarm companies. We are also uniquely-positioned to continually adopt emerging technologies to benefit our dealers and their customers.

In addition to our onsite servers, we also have servers deployed at the Switch SuperNap – one of the world’s most secure data centers – as an added layer of protection and level of data and processing redundancy that other companies just don’t have.

COPS is the only professional monitoring company with Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certifications. The SOC 2 audits consist of very thorough examinations and documentation of our systems focusing on security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. The rigorous process is designed to ensure our internal controls and operating effectiveness continue to meet or exceed the highest standards and continue to do so in practice over time.

COPS has also contracted with leading cybersecurity firm RiskSense to perform periodic risk and threat assessments and thorough tests for network resiliency and penetration defense to ensure our systems are protected.